Mobile computing devices including the standby chargers, which provide life support to battery-starved smartphones or tablets, are adding pounds to the bags dangling from our aching shoulders. For the sake of our shoulders and spine, we need fewer and lighter devices.

Not only are we enamored with the ability to send and receive information in a digital format, but our children are equally smitten. I hear more and more parents bemoaning the fact that they're not able to retrieve their iPad or laptop from their young child who is busy surfing the web, watching videos or playing games on the device. Here are the top seven ways that digital technology has affected our children -- the good and the bad.

Like the disappearance of the landline telephone, the withering of cable will be less about long-time subscribers making a bold shift than about successive generations below them simply failing to sign up for a service they see as an unnecessary encumbrance.